Convert Avigilon .Ave File Format To .Mp4

joel rakow

We have a customer that needs to enable its global constituency to view recorded security video over the Internet. Avigilon's .ave format is not universal enough. How do you convert the file format of recorded video for .ave to .mp4 or .ave to .avi and then .mp4?

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Derek Ward

I spoke with Avigilon tech support, and they basically said that you could export the footage directly to .AVI instead of .AVE (which you already knew), and that their standalone media player can export .AVE footage to .AVI, but not to .mp4.

The tech told me to use third party software to convert the files, although when I asked what kind to use, he didn't give me a recommendation and said "any converter should work".

With that being said, if you can use VLC media player, test this conversion method yourself and see if it works for you, since it's the quickest file conversion I've seen / used.

Open VLC Media player.

Click "media" in the top left corner.

Select "Convert / Save" near the bottom of the menu.

Click on "Add" to add your file, then click on "Convert / Save".

Next, select the codec type you would like and click "start".

Now, you will see VLC open and run with a time bar underneath. DO NOT CLOSE VLC, as this is the conversion process, which is usually second for second, so if you were to have 3 VLC players open with 3 conversion processes running, you should theoretically have them all complete within the 7 hours or so of recorded footage.

Try this out and see how it works for you. Also, if anyone else has any recommendations on conversion software they prefer to use, please comment!

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Undisclosed #1

Also, if after testing this method, you find the performance acceptable, you can run the transcoding in batch from the command line, with the -d argument for dummy display, and quit command. VLC command-line options.

Though you still have the time of the export + conversion time to consider.

I wonder if a playback or export RTSP stream could be hijacked directly into vlc, skipping the export time?

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joel rakow

Thank you for doing that, Derek...I agree, very nice. We will have our systems engineer and appllication engineer run through your recommended routine and see how it works and what we might be able to do with it. I will be happy to let you know the results of our effort, if that will be of value to you. joelrakow@olliviercorp.com.

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Andrew Thomas

In my opinion, why do any of this. You can provide everyone the Stand-Alone (non installation player) that runs on machines that are domain locked down in police departments and other businesses, it's free, and it provides all of the features of the VMS client. Pixel, Bookmark searches, multi-camera, and NLE exports accross cameras, and maintaining authenticity. the original exporter can determine just what is being exported, the quality, the size etc....adding another layer of complexity seems to be adding another layer of support. We have some clients that regularly (weekly) provide incident video (multi-camera) views to a certain government agency, and we've never had that agency mention any issue in 5 years or more.

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Andrew Thomas

Mac / Mobile versions of the player.... not yet, and we must be living in a bubble, as we've never been asked to support Mac IOS as a security client. I'll bet that looks good in a traditional "feature / benefit" dog and pony sales pitch.

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Andrew Thomas

Our original application for mobile, was with smaller police / sherriff departments, and the officers having their smart phones on the dash or with them, the cameras in the parks would see headlights, or people in the parks in late hours. (text alerts too), the officers on their late night patrols drive through the parks making their presence known.

We've supported 100's of Ipad, Droid Pads, tablet pads, you name it, and many clients are making wholesale switches back to SurfacePro type devices, for better IT management, and a sense of being more productive with the Micro$oft suites.

Thank Goodness, as the Avigilon Mobile app remains a work in progress.

We ran our test on it and were able to record directly into an MP4 container in real-time with no issues. We used a 1MP Avigilon Camera with shooting in 720p resolution at 30 frames per second with little processing required. Multiple stream recording worked as well with no issues evident during the test.

Avigilon conducted a conference of several sales engineers located in various territories. No solution was identified until the concept of using the RTSP and then one of the engineers connected the dots.

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Undisclosed #1

I also got it working on the fly from two cameras to VLC, although the support for file rotation is much cleaner in ffmpeg.

One thing I was also thinking was that it's kind of a poor man's redundancy, since it's sidesteps the VMS completely. Also, in an environment where a camera multicasted stream already exists, there would be no additional load on the camera or anything except the ffmpeg archive server.

One question, did you implement automatic file rotation yet, or did you just stop the stream manually?

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Andrew Thomas

I won't ask why your cameras are accessible, and I'll assume all is secure, and you might ask your Avigilon Partner to provide you the tech document to stream your desktop to RSTP... The tech document is titled "how to stream your desktop to via RSTP into ACC."

Of course you'll stream this into an alternative recorder, but doing this will allow you to record more than one camera into the stream, zoom and pan the original footage during the creation of the export...

Maybe someone could explain how to add an mono - audio channel into the RSTP stream so you can add voice overlays to the videos.

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